Tag Team
by watermelloncat
Summary: I've become predictable… here's another Steve sickfic. But I have done something a little different this time: The first chapter is the original story I planned to write. The second chapter is from Robin's viewpoint, like a prequel of the story.
1. Chapter 1

The sound of the doorbell dinging in the video store entrance is enough to send waves of excitement coursing through Robin. Her shift had been slow from the beginning and she was all alone, twiddling her fingers to pass the time. Dying for social interaction her head jerked up to see a group of familiar looking teenagers walking towards the desk.

"Is Steve here?" Dustin looks around with his signature grin. "I thought he normally worked on Thursdays."

"Yeah, he was here" Robin sits up from where she was slumped over the front desk, "but he went home. He wasn't feeling too hot."

With the time of year nearing winter and the season changing, it was like everyone was getting sick. But something about Steve getting sick bothered Dustin. "We should go look in on him" he says turning back to the group where he was met with sounds of confirmation, none of them had anything better to do.

"Thanks Robin!" Dustin calls out as the groups turns around to leave from their short visit.

"Hold on! Wait!" Robin stops them.

Turning around they see her come out from behind the desk and grab something off one of the shelves. As she closes the gap between them, she holds the video in her hand out to Dustin, who flips it over inspecting it.

"Does Steve like this one?" he asks sceptically. As far as he knew Steve didn't possess the great passion for Science Fiction films.

"Not likely" Robin admits. "But he'll probably sleep through anything, he was looking pretty tired."

With that in mind Dustin puts the video in his bag, nodding his thanks to Robin, before following the group out the door to their bikes.

With each of the boys mounted on their bikes and Max skateboarding along holding the back of Lucas's seat, their convoy sets off to Steve's house. But not without a snack stop first.

The ringing doorbell can be heard echoing frantically from the inside of the house. "Steve! Open up!" Dustin yells only after about five seconds.

When Dustin finally quits his musical production, they can make out a faint "yeah, I'm coming" followed by a couple of rough sounding coughs.

"Whoa" Steve stumbles back a bit after opening the door revealing a group of teenagers packed tightly before the doorframe, arms full with bags of chips, drinks and the like.

"Figured you wouldn't be up for much, so we thought we'd make a thing of it" Mike explains as he follows Dustin then Lucas's lead through the doorway.

Max is the last to file through. Without saying a word, she reaches her hand up to Steve's forehead on the way past.

While standing in the doorway she'd noticed a slight flush on Steve's checks and a had speculated that he has a fever. Her suspicions are confirmed when she feels heat against her hand. The fact that Steve doesn't bat away her hand is another testament to how out of sorts he's feeling.

Drawing her hand back, she says nothing but Steve shares a knowing look with her.

Inside they find the boys searching the kitchen trying to find things to put snacks and drinks in.

"Bowls and cups are in the cupboards at the back" Steve says as he comes to stand at the front of the kitchen counter.

"Dude, your voice" Lucas exclaims, noting how Steve sounds like he had one too many smokes at a party.

"Hey, you guys knew what you were getting into when you came over here" Steve shrugs. "And you're probably all contaminated now, so… there's that."

"How are you feeling buddy?" Dustin asks after a few seconds of silence.

"I've been better" Steve says shakily before he turns away to sneeze into his elbow. "_EHSKTCHHhhuhh!_"

"Jesus!" Max yelps from where she's helping Lucas pour out drinks, narrowly avoiding spilling juice outside the rim of a cup.

Steve sniffles into his elbow and grabs a few tissues from the box on the bench before blowing his nose.

"Have you taken anything?" Mike asks and Steve notes that he shares Nancy's caring nature.

Steve shakes his head, then releases a couple of hoarse coughs into his fist.

"Do you have any Panadol?" Max asks.

"Should do" Steve says.

"You should go take some" Max suggests, knowing that it should help bring down his fever.

Steve nods tiredly before heading to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

Rounding the corner from the hallway Steve finds the kids sitting on the floor in the lounge, leaving the couch for him. Joining them in the lounge he drops the stack of blankets he was carrying in front of them before sitting on the couch.

"You need one," Max says picking up the blanket that had fallen in front of her legs, noticing that Steve no longer has one. Steve smiles gratefully, accepting the blanket and wrapping it around himself.

"You're not going to be alright to babysit us tomorrow, are you?" Mike asks, placing a cup of juice from the collection on the floor onto the table next to Steve.

"I'll be fine" Steve affirms.

"I don't know man. You seem pretty bad to me" Lucas states.

"Well, if you think about it, I'm kind of…" Steve trails off, taking in a shaky breath and closing his eyes in preparation for a sneeze. He subconsciously sniffs as he brings his sweatshirt up to cover his nose, "_EGH'SHHKkkhuh!" He holds the neckline under his nose, waiting for the next sneeze to come, his breath hitching desperately. "EDKSSTHchhh!" he brings his sweatshirt up again to cover the final sneeze. Sniffling miserably, he drops his grip on his collar as Dustin gets up to grab the box of tissues from the kitchen counter._

_"__Kind of looking after you now" Steve continues, ignoring the fact that he was interrupted._

_"__We're the ones doing the looking after, don't you think Steve?" Dustin voices handing Steve the box of tissues._

_As Steve clears his nose, Dustin notices him shivering and reaches a hand forward to feel his forehead, "Panadol should kick in soon."_

_Midway through watching the movie Robin selected for them, Steve's eyes start to get heavy._

_"__If you want to nod off, go for it" Mike turns around after hearing Steve shift to rub the tiredness out of his eyes. "You look terrible."_

"You're such a charmer, Wheeler" Steve chuckles weakly as he settles down into the couch. Sleep does sound nice and he soon loses consciousness to the sound of the movie and quiet talking.

The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that the lounge is empty, like no one else was ever there. Sitting up and stretching the stiffness out of his arms, a note slides off his torso and onto the floor. Picking it up from the ground he turns it over revealing handwriting that could only belong to Max; it was far too tidy to belong to any of the boys.

_Gone home now_

_Let us know if you're too sick to look after us tomorrow_

_Hope you feel better soon_

With a smile on his face, Steve takes himself up to his bed hoping the same thing.


	2. Chapter 2

Robin was initially dismissal about the idea of Steve being sick. Sure, he wasn't very talkative when she'd arrived from school but she'd figured that he was just having a bad day and didn't press him about it.

From the onset of her shift he'd looked tired but she knew, like her, his sleep was often plagued by nightmares of the Russian base and the Upside Down. A peaceful sleep didn't come often for either of them, so she chalked the tired lines under his eyes up to that, plus he had been there all day.

Even the spressed coughing didn't cause her to think any differently. _People cough, right?_ But that was only until the quiet sniffling started, then her mind started to change. It was cold outside so that would explain the cause of his nose running, but it was warm inside with the heaters on. Pairing that with her other observations, the possibility of him being sick was too suspicious to pass by any longer. So, from then on, she kept a closer eye on him.

About an hour into her shift she picked up on him discretely rubbing or holding his nose in a bid not to sneeze. It was this action which cemented her conclusion that he's sick.

"You coming down with something?" she asks after the fifth time of him doing this.

"I'm fine, Robin" Steve answers.

"Really? Cause you sound kind of stuffy to me" Robin observes the deeper tone of his voice. She knew all the girls from school would love it because they would deem it '_sexy'_. But she just felt sorry for him, it sounded like it hurt for him to talk.

"Okay, I'm sick but I'm fine. Alright?" he sighed, looking over at her with eyes that begged her to leave it alone.

But Robin just had one more question first, "are you sure you want to be here? You have been here all day."

"Just trust me Robin. Okay?" he pleads.

"Okay" she repeats. If he feels like he's okay to continue then who is she to say no? Maybe she's overthinking it.

An hour and a half into her shift no one had come into the store, so she decides to get her homework out. While she works away, she can hear Steve moving around the store organising things, occasionally stifling sneezes. Again, she doesn't think much of it, you can only hold back sneezes for so long.

Once her homework is completed, she packs it away and sits at the front desk twiddling a pencil between her fingers. Eventually Steve comes to join her, apparently satisfied by the layout of the store.

"You had many people come in today?" she disrupts the silence.

"No" Steve shakes his head. "Had a few come in around lunchtime but there hasn't been anyone since."

"Must have been lonely then" Robin says before the room fades once again into silence.

Eventually Robin gets bored of twirling pencils and has a look round for things to do. After going into the backroom, she comes out with a box of movies to have their 'Recently Released' stickers removed.

After a little while of her working away she hears to Steve shift suddenly next to her. "Hea'_**tsc**__hoo_" she sees him direct a sneeze into his elbow, his fringe falling into his face. He sniffs heavily as he straitens up, running a hand through his hair to put it back in place.

It's not like the sneeze was insanely powerful, but it worries Robin that Steve is no longer suppressing how sick he is. Gone are the quietly stifled sneezes and the discrete sniffling.

Instead of pressing him into going home again she opts to ask him, "how long have you been sick for?"

"Kind of been feeling off for a few days now" Steve admits.

"And you've still been working" Robin observes. "You're such a douche bag."

"Don't go being like that," Steve rebukes, "I know you would still go to school like this."

"True" Robin agrees and shuts up for the moment.

The coughing next to her starts out as before, being muffled in the back of Steve's throat. It doesn't worry Robin; she's gotten used to it by this point. Although, it does cause her to look up when they escape past his lips and he muffles them into the back of his wrist, but she quickly becomes accustomed to that too and continues taking stickers off video cases.

When the sound becomes louder and deeper, Steve moves his elbow up to shield them. With the actions tearing at his throat he knows they won't give up soon.

At the sound of Steve's chair pulling out Robin looks up again, this time with a worried look on her face and sympathy burning in her chest as Steve takes himself away to the breakroom. The closed door only dulling the sound of coughing so painful that it hurts Robin's chest listening to it.

Robin's immediate instinct is to follow Steve, but she thinks better of it and decides to give him a little more time for privacy before she goes to check on him.

A minute after the coughing stops is all the time she can wait before she slides out of her seat and makes her way over to the breakroom. When she reaches the door, she knocks out of politeness but opens the door immediately. She would have ignored any protest if given one anyway.

"Tell me honestly, how are you feeling?" she demands in the most serious voice Steve's ever heard her speak in, but it's still compassionate all the same.

"Would" Steve starts but his voice comes out squeaky, so he clears his throat and tries again. "Would you mind if I went home?" Although that is obviously what he needs to do, he still speaks hesitantly.

"Of course not," Robin sighs, "I've been trying to hint that to you all afternoon."

Steve flashes her a small smile but drops it quickly, "I'm sorry, Robin. I really thought I could push through it."

"Don't be stupid, you should already be at home in bed" Robin shakes her head. "I can finish up here tonight. Just please go and get some sleep."

"Are you sure?" Steve checks.

"_Yes,_ I'm sure" Robin groans, "now get out of my face, dingus."

After Steve left, Robin was struck with the realisation that she's never been so glad to be left alone. Little did she know that shortly, a group of ragtag kids would come and disturb that.


End file.
